Step 12: Arduino Demo

Step 13: EMG Circuit Schematic

Click the i box in the top left to see a larger version... or go to our website and click on the EMG schematic image .

Measuring muscle activation via electric potential, referred to as electromyography (EMG) , has traditionally been used for medical research and diagnosis of neuromuscular disorders. However, with the advent of ever shrinking yet more powerful microcontrollers and integrated circuits, EMG circuits and sensors have found their way into prosthetics, robotics and other control systems. Yet, EMG systems remain expensive and mostly outside the grasp of modern hobbyist.

This instructable will teach you how to make your own muscle sensor / EMG circuit to incorporate into your next project. Use it to control video games, robot arms, exoskeletons, etc.

Click on the video below for a demonstrations on how to hook up and use your EMG circuit board!

Note: This sensor is not intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions, or in the cure, mitigation treatment, or prevention of disease, in a man or other animals.

About Advancer Technologies Advancer Technologies is a company devoted to developing innovative game-changing biomedical and biomechanical technologies and applied sciences. Additionally, Advancer Technologies promotes all forms of interest and learning into biomedical technologies. To help culture and educate future great minds and concepts in the field, they frequently post informative instructions on some of their technologies. For more information, please visit www.AdvancerTechnologies.com .

Hi I am not an electrical engineer. I am doing a lab projectwith EMG elecrodes that read small facial muscle EMG signals via surfaceelectrodes. I just need an indicator (such as a buzzer or flashing light) to gooff when the small muscle is stimulated.Would any of your sensors serve that purpose for me? How would I set up thatcircuit? Thank you

Yes it would be suitable for your application. Our new sensor the MyoWare actually has an on-board LED that is driven by the output signal. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/312488939/myowaretm-harness-the-power-of-your-muscle-signals

Don't you compromise the common mode rejection by boosting the front end gain with external 1M 1% resistors? CMRR is the prime consideration digging small differential signals out of the background hum! The INA10 has spectacular CMRR and gain accuracy because it has finely (and expensively!) laser matched resistors. I would have thought it better to up the gain in the 3rd stage, which is currently unity.

hello and good day. im working on my fyp which is related to the hand gesture in controlling home appliance. by using the coding given, i am actually stuck and confused to what actually this sensor will displayed. i dont know if im on right track or not. as there is no further explanation on it. and how i can drive a dc motor from the muscle signal output by using arduino uno. please help me and thank u if u can help me..T_T

Hi, Actually i m making a battery plates tester, in which i pass 21Amp and 5V dc across the the plate, and the voltage drop across the plate is 0.3mv to 0.4mv , if drop is 0.3mv it is satisfactory, and if it is 0.4vm that is not satisfactory,

i m using instrumentation amplifier, ad620, to detect the small signal and amplify it to certain voltage, then i compare the two voltages by using comparator is lm324, but the problem is that it produces chattering in relay operation , i have added hyterisis but it still produces chattering

Hi, Gundanium. Im trying to build the sensor and was curious about what are the improvements I should make tô the project tô add two more channels? Should I double the circuit os there are other alternatives? Im no eng, but a biophysicist and enthusiast of tech and electronics. Thank you

I managed to assemble this project is operating normally ... like a hint, how can I increase the sensitivity of the circuit? For example, if I want to monitor variations in electrical potential without even having muscle contractions, or in a state of relaxation or strees would be an example.

I tried to increase or decrease the gain resistor between pins 5 and 6, but to no avail, however lost sensitivity.

I'm starting in the area of electronics, if someone give some hint where I can find information on, I thank you.

And sorry, my english is not very good, I am "writing" with the help of a translator ...

Youd probably be best using the raw emg waveform rather than the envelope. Just use an instrumentation amplifier like the first stage of this circuit. Remove DC offset from its ouput with a high pass filter and then amplifier with as much gain as you need to get the sensitivity youre looking for.

Oh! I made one by MSP430 four years ago in Taiwan, the instrument amplifier I adopted is AD620, plus band pass filter from 60~1.0kHz to get signals. You can read the paper in Taichung Chin-E Univ. of technology.

The other signals like ECG, body temperature...etc. Did you ever tried?

hye Gundanium, my final year project is about wireless EMG for nominal switching controller. I want to control the on-off switching for lamp or bulb for 240V. from what I have proposed, my project concept is build an EMG circuit with a tranceiver and build one circuit with a transceiver as switch for my 240V bulb. The EMG circuit will be controlled the switch to on or off the bulb.So do I need isolation circuit in my EMG circuit? may you give me some idea about my proposed project.

hye Gundanium, my final year project is about wireless EMG for nominal switching controller. I want to control the on-off switching for lamp or bulb for 240V. from what I have proposed, my project concept is build an EMG circuit with a tranceiver and build one circuit with a transceiver as switch for my 240V bulb. The EMG circuit will be controlled the switch to on or off the bulb.So do I need isolation circuit in my EMG circuit? may you give me some idea about my proposed project.

We used Arduino but we couldn't visualize it. Which program have you used for processing for Arduino? We used Firmata but we couldn't understand how to use both codes together. Can you please tell us how to make it step by step? Thanks for your consideration.

The circuit outputs an analog signal so you need either an analog-to-digital converter or a microcontroller to convert it to a digital signal the computer can understand. I usually do with with an Arduino MCU. I'm using an Arduino sketch to send the sensor data over serial and Processing to take that data and visualize it. You can find the code on our website or on our GitHub repository.

As for an o-scope, the signal is analog so you can view it with an o-scope.

hai am bhavana, the project is very good , building our own EMG circuit for many applications, iam thinking to use this in my project, but my question is where can i get the software or program to be installed into arduino. please help in this regard thank u

About This Instructable

Bio:Brian Kaminski
Owner - Advancer Technologies
Brian graduated from North Carolina State University with a BS in Biomedical Engineering with a concentration in Biomechanics in May, 2006. While at North...read more »